


The Life we Don't Let the World See

by ThomasTheTrashCan



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: BAMF Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Howard Stark's Bad Parenting, Multi, PTSD, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark is a genius, Tony centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:58:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9396608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThomasTheTrashCan/pseuds/ThomasTheTrashCan
Summary: Tony Stark's life and personality in alphabetical order.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello :) Hope you enjoy my first Marvel story.

**A-Afghanistan**

Tony Stark was admittedly unaware before the nightmare that was Afghanistan. Unaware of all the terror and suffering his company caused. Unaware of the traitorous man he treated like family. Unaware of the true meaning of insufferable pain. After his kidnapping and torture he was no longer innocent to these things. He felt the pain in his chest every day, oh god, he could never forget it. How could he? He felt the reminder of Afghanistan in his body, in his mind. It never seemed to leave him. Funny how the one thing that never left him is unimaginable pain. After all, when he watched the laughably under qualified "doctors" in Afghanistan dig out a place in his chest, they removed what was there. He's missing bone and tissue. How was that expected not to hurt? He was missing space in his chest to breathe, keeping his lungs from properly expanding. Sure he survived Afghanistan, but he didn't get out without scars.

  


**B-Blue**

A faint blue glow filled the room, a glow that represented both his genius and his power, but most of all, it represented his will to survive. No, not just to survive, to destroy those who oppose him beyond recognition, to crush all who wish him harm. Say what you want about his morality, but realize, he will never lose. Not to Howard, not to the Ten Rings, not to Obie, not to Loki, and not to anyone else. _Never_ to anyone else. So when he saw that blue light, he felt hatred and pride in equal measure. Hatred for all the sins of his past, and hatred for his enemies. Sometimes he hated himself, too. Not that he told anyone that particular thought, though. After all, Stark men were made of iron, and iron showed no weakness, until it was about to break, that is.

  


**C-Consultant**

Was he surprised? No, never. They said he was volatile, doesn’t play well with others, okay, sure, Tony knew that, accepted it even. But the part that stung? Iron Man yes, Tony Stark no. Did these fools at SHIELD really believe anyone other than himself could operate his suit? They think that anyone could fly this, well they can’t. The can’t process the data he can, at the speed he can. Over two hundred different graphs flash before his eyes in a minute. See if anyone else can process that, and still have time to save the whole fucking world. Tony Stark was an anomaly, and he owned his suit. Claiming they were separate, well that was just blasphemy.

  


**D-Defeat**

Tony never loses, that's a rule. But unlike the general public seems to think, it's neither luck or accident, oh, it's all skill. He can calculate the probability of every outcome a single action can have in a matter of mere moments. He can almost predict the future with a godlike precision. Even if you knew Tony Stark, you could never really comprehend the extent this went to. He could cross the street in moving traffic, cars traveling at 90 mph (144 kph) and make it out the other side in one piece and uninjured. He could predict the way everything he said would be received, he could read you like a book. Tony Stark could manipulate anyone just after one conversation. He could never admit defeat, so he resolved to know _everything._

  


**E-Efficient**

Say what you will about Tony bad habits, but laziness, well that just wasn't one of them. In fact, if you were to ask a trained healthcare professional, they'd say he was overworked. And not like your average run of the mill lawyer, no, like he literally should have passed out from exhaustion ten hours ago. When he had work, he got it done. After all, he did become an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics _overnight._  So when he put his mind to something, whether it be lifelike prosthetics or a metal suit, he did it, and he did it well. Always, and that's no accident.

  


**F-Feelings**

Tony always let off an air of aloofness. He was both aware of that and welcoming to it.The easiest way to hide things is in plain sight as they say. So he hides how much it hurts to see the man he looked up to confirm everything Howard Stark every said. _You’re no hero_. It was equally heartbreaking and beautiful to see how imperfect the good Captain was. He never let Rogers know that, of course. So he left his feelings in the background, and did what he did best- Fought to win.

  


**G-Genius**

His brain worked differently than everyone else's, sure, he knew that, but he had never realized just how extreme that difference was. Tony Stark could be thinking about the meeting at hand, concentrate on the agonizingly scientific article on his phone, plan the schematics for revolutionary medical equipment AND beat a Grandmaster at chess. He was Just that good. Not that he’d ever think he was good enough.

  


**H-Hidden**

Tony Stark represented himself as carefree. He never showed how broken he was, never showed how constantly stressed he was. To show that, he would have to let people in. That was something he could not do.  So he hid his fears behind a careful mask of carefree snark. If you looked deeply into his eyes, not than anyone ever did, you could see the pain that hides behind the vaguely or sometimes directly insulting comments. But no one cared enough to see the boiling blood and tears hiding in the shell of a man. I suppose no one stayed long enough to find out, they never do. That's why he liked machines, they would never leave you, they didn't care if you cried or if your face stayed painfully blank. Machines he could understand, people, well they were just impossible.

  


**I-Inventions**

If there was anything Tony could be proud of, it would be his inventions. Sure some of them were flawed, but they were unique in a way humans never could be. You could program a machine to do one thing, and _it would do it._ But you ask something of a human? They didn’t take the most logical way about things. Tony only wished the humans in his life could be more like his bots, loyal and dependable. People come, people go. God damn, it they always go. But machines stay. They always stay.

  


**J-Jarvis**

The late Edwin Jarvis was one of the only people in this world Tony Stark had truly loved. His family butler had practically raised him, no he did raise him. Despite his old age, Jarvis cared for the young son of Howard and Maria Stark. He was the one who kissed Tony goodnight, the one who remembered his birthday. If Tony could have chosen his father, Jarvis would have been it. Yet Jarvis had left. No, not in the way the others did, he died without his own volition. So no, Tony didn’t blame him. So instead of forgetting (read:letting it burn up his insides), the only surviving Stark reincarnated his childhood butler as an AI, ready to serve him and keep him company.        (Machines never left)

  


**K-Knowledge**

Not knowing things was something Tony Stark could not take. He had to be in control. He had to be able to predict the outcome of situations. Nevermind that he could use variables, it was better to know. Once he knew, he knew how to respond. His knowledge led his to his best conclusions. Chance of Maria and Howard dying in an actual car accident? Less than twelve percent. The chance the batshit crazy board of directors at SHIELD would send in a Nuke? Just over seventy four percent. See having the knowledge of everyone at SHIELD (that includes Natashalie) made prediction all the more easy. It also helped with poker.

  


**L-Learning**

Tony started learning early. Like really early. He built his first circuit board at four and his first engine at the age of six. Clearly, that called for for advanced placement. He went to MIT ant seventeen. Not that it actually taught him much he didn’t know, but hey, it got him away from the memories. That was certainly a plus. MIT was also where he met Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, one of his best friends.

  


**M-Maria**

Tony could have called her mother, but she never fit that role. That was Ana’s job. Tony loved Maria, she was a kind woman, even if it wasn’t to her own son. Howard hit her once, and she was done protecting her child. She now turned a blind eye at the abuse Tony received. Sure, you could excuse her actions with her mental state, but she was supposed to act like his mother. Tony still had some animosity toward Maria, but he still loved her all the same.

  


**N-Nuke**

The day Tony Stark sacrificed himself to save New York, was the first day the world saw him as he truly was, a hero. He lied himself down on the wire. He didn't run. And he never expected to survive. Before he ran out of oxygen, his only thought was _good._ Tony was glad his life could be exchanged for so many. Soon though, people started separating the suit from the man. The tabloids either said Tony Stark or Iron Man, never both.

  


**O-Obsessive**

Sometimes Tony was obsessive. He couldn't help it, for it had always been a part of him. He would focus on the little things, working on them non stop until they were complete. He would find a topic he knew nothing about and research it until there wasn't a question he couldn't answer. Tony could spend days and nights working on something, not stopping except to drink his sweet ambrosia (read: coffee)

  


**P-Palladium**

Tony Stark was dying. Did he care? Not especially. No one had ever claimed he wasn't self destructive, and no one ever would. So, he set up a will and got his affairs in order. Every time he used the suit, he'd get closer to  dying, but he didn't stop. Not if he could save even one person with it. Eventually he stopped it, right before death knocked. Tony Stark beat it, because he never lost.

  


**Q-Quadriceps**

For some reason, people seemed to believe Tony Stark wasn't Especially buff. They could not have been more wrong. He lift a forty pound wrench when he was _dying._ And hell, every day he worked with heavy machinery, lifting and building them with his own strength. So yeah, Tony Stark was fit.

 

**R-Rules**

Tony Stark never followed the rules, in fact, it could be said in good confidence that he purposely disregarded them entirely. He'd go out of his way to break all rules and still get it done. He hated authority (thanks Howard) and he'd do everything in his power to prove it. That's why he and Steve didn't get along. Steve believed he was right, and that Tony should follow his orders. It's safe to say Tony disagreed.

  


**S-Secrets**

Tony Stark is a private man. He kept things to himself, never sharing anything whether it be his middle name or the schematics for the Arc Reactor. The Avengers didn't know his favorite color or anything about his past. They didn't know what an ass Howard was, and Tony wanted to keep it that way. The less people knew, the less they could hurt you. He learned that lesson with Howard, with Obie and with Pepper. If the world did not know your darkest secrets, even if they claimed to, then you were safe. Actually, it was better if they assumed. If they assumed, they wouldn't expect the truth.

  


**T-Tavern**

Alcohol was an old friend of Tony's. He had known it since the age of six when Howard had given him his first glass. Howard had said it'd make him a man; Tony said it could make him forget. Contrary to popular belief, the youngest Stark was not always drinking. The liquor held bad memories for him, both long past and recent. You see, Howard drank quite often, and it never helped improve his mood or temperament, not even for one moment. At the best of times, which kept getting fewer and further between his father would ignore Tony, not letting his child in his space, not wanting to lay eyes on the boy. At the worst of times, or as they could be referred to- the usual, Howard was strict and angry. Any little thing could set him off, _every little thing set him off._ Tony couldn’t rightly say he never drank, but it had become less and less frequent.

  


**U-Undervalued**

Throughout his whole life, Tony Stark has been thoroughly undervalued. It had happened with his parents, it had happened with Obie (his final symphonie- ha, it was hardly the last one), and most recently with the Avengers. They never seemed to understand just how _special_ he was. He was Iron Man; he was a man of iron. Hell, he made the suit with a box of scraps in a cave. It was beyond him how anyone could possibly underestimate him. The most probable reason for it was the mental separation between Tony Stark and Iron Man, between a mistake and a hero. The world seemed to forget, they were one and the same.

  


**V-Vision**

The creation of the android, no matter how helpful, had permanently taken away the thing he had treasured the most.Vision had the voice of Jarvis, yet an entirely different personality. The one constant in his life had been taken away, _again,_ history really does seem to repeat itself. So Jarvis could no longer be used for obvious reasons, so the genius implemented a new AI- FRIDAY. She could never live up to J, Tony had too many memories with his previous Artificial Intelligence, both good and bad, but life changing nevertheless. The last remaining Stark had lost his caregiver once again.

  


**W-Weapons**

Tony Stark was born into the business of warmongering and weapon production,it was in his blood, forged into his very bones. For the longest time it was all he knew, all he cared about knowing, but like he said, after Afghanistan, his eyes were opened. He saw the damage his weapons were doing in the hands of terrorists, his name plastered proudly on the side. He felt the damage too, the shrapnel racing toward his heart was proof enough of that. Morals aside, weapons and the making of them were one of his many talents. He could make a bomb far more powerful than the nuke dropped on New York, and he could do it in an hour. A misle strong enough to wipe out entire countries? Easy, simple, boring and done. It seemed destruction was his forte.

  
  


**X-Xenolith**

Anthony Edward Stark had a piece of foreign material wedged into his chest- a xenolith, if you will. It got odd looks, bot of awe and terror, when he showed it, which for the record was uncommon to say the least. The material, the first one anyway, had been killing him for a while, but hey, at least he had invented an _entirely new element_ that was less poisonous and so much more effective. I don’t know about you, but I find that impressive _._ So, the Arc Reactor imbedded in his sternum wasn’t originally present at birth, but it was a part of him nonetheless.

  


**Y-Yearbook**

His college yearbook had few signatures. That was partly due to the fact that he had missed much of his school days (they were too dumb to teach him anything) and majorly due to the fact that the young adults he went to school absolutely _loathed_ him. They were either jealous of his money, his intellect or he had slept with their significant other. The last one, he got, really, no judgement for that one. The first two, however, made no sense. So he went through what were supposed to be the best days of his life with one friend and too much potential- too much greatness. People were jealous, and they always would be. They are sharks waiting to feed on the bodies of the fallen.

  


**Z-Zoetic**

The life Tony Stark lived was a lonely one, yet it was still a life many envied. Many men, usually the ones who knew no better, were jealous of his money and his overall appeal to women and men alike. There were many who disapproved of his lifestyle, or what they believed it to be, anyways. If it wasn’t because he slept around, it was because of his past. If it wasn’t because of his past, it was because of his future. If it wa- well, you get the picture. Tony Stark was envied, yet he was envious too. Envious of the happy white-picket-fence-life many men lived. Sometimes he was jealous of the rain.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Did you see any mistakes? I'd appreciate any corrections.


End file.
